European court says Switzerland violated strikers’ rights

Switzerland failed to protect the rights of workers dismissed after a strike at Providence Hospital in Neuchâtel, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled, overturning a decision by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. SRF reported the ruling.

The dispute escalated in the winter of 2012-13, as the hospital was being taken over by the Genolier group. The new owners announced in June 2012 that they would leave the collective labour agreement. Employees went on strike in response.

After weeks of walkouts, hospital management told the strikers to return to work. Twenty-two employees refused and were dismissed in February 2013. Seventeen employees and four union officials challenged their dismissals in court.

In rulings in 2018 and 2020, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court found that the strike had ceased to be a last resort on January 23, 2013, after the hospital made concessions, including keeping the collective labour agreement in place for that year. It concluded that the walkout had become disproportionate.

The European Court of Human Rights said the strikers and unions could not have foreseen that a strike initially considered lawful might later be ruled unlawful. It also found that Swiss courts had not balanced the employees’ right to strike against the employer’s interests. By denying the claimants protection from dismissal, the courts had undermined the core of the right to strike, the European court said. That right is an essential part of freedom of association under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Switzerland must pay about 9,000 francs in compensation to the employees who brought the case and about 4,500 francs to the union members.